Shadow Slave

With a faint smile on her face, Nephis nodded and raised her sword, pointing it at him in invitation. Sunny summoned the Sin of Solace and took a stance opposite her. From the Forgotten Shore to the basement of his home in the peaceful terrace district, they had trained with each other numerous times. This simple sequence of actions was as natural for them as breathing.

However, today, there was an awkward pause.

Sunny scratched the back of his head and glanced at the jade jian.

"That... isn't going to work, is it?"

Nephis seemed to have come to a similar conclusion, looking at him sheepishly.

'No, what the hell... since when does she know how to emote? This is just too cute...'

He coughed.

The problem facing them was that both had grown too powerful - and, subsequently, the weapons they used were too powerful, too. The Sin of Solace was a Transcendent Memory of the Fifth Tier, and quite a harrowing one at that. Sunny was not entirely sure what the level of Neph's longsword was, but it had to be quite a menacing weapon, as well, considering that it had come from the soul arsenal of a Saint.

It would be already bad enough if the Sin of Solace damaged or destroyed it. But what if Sunny was not careful enough and scratched Nephis in the process? The curse of madness carried by the jade blade would either crush her mental defenses, or at least put debilitating pressure on her mind for a period of time.

Standing some distance away, the spirit of the jian smiled.

"No, no. Don't worry... I'll be gentle."

However, that smile of his was more than a little bit sinister.

Sunny frowned, then dismissed the jade sword and got lost in thought for a few moments. Eventually, a smile of delight appeared on his lips.

"Let's do this."

shadows around them suddenly moved and flowed toward him, then slowly formed into two inky black swords. One of them was a fearsome odachi, while the

practiced relentlessly, after all. The longsword was a little bit tricky, since he had never created one before. Nevertheless, he was familiar with it as well, and so managed to produce a passable

them into articulated hands, since weapons were static by nature. However, in reality, shaping a sword was just as complex of

to possess certain characteristics to feel right in the hand - weight, balance, flexibility and rigidity, center of percussion that Neph had recently mentioned, and so on. It was especially daunting with something like the odachi, which possessed a flexible edge

Sunny had even studied a bit of blacksmithing on the network. Back then, Clan Valor had been preventing him from visiting the Dream Realm, so he had

shaping was only the most basic of them. Sunny could also affect the material composition of the manifested shadows, although that demanded a higher essence expenditure.

or adhesive. In the past, all these internal transformations had been very difficult to achieve,

that was

and curiously took the shadow weapon from his hand, he secretly held his breath. She weighed the black

"That works."

smile and raised

"Let's begin, then."

that feeling... he missed it. The Sin of Solace was a piece of art in the form of a jian, but Sunny's heart still lay with blades like this one. Maybe because it was what he had learned swordsmanship with,

odachi slightly, Sunny pushed himself forward

instantly entangled in a breathtaking dance of singing steel. Their swift figures blurred, and soon, nothing but a dark shape and a light shape could be seen, moving across the green moss as they weaved and circled around each other. It was as though two spirits

'She really has improved...'

swordsmanship felt... different. It had always been somewhat ineffable due to her eerie ability to control both the battlefield and the enemy, but now,

seemed the same. The

to attack. Each strike packed a devastating punch that seemed too extreme even for an Ascended Terror. Her defense was nearly impenetrable, alternating between immovable hardness and inviting softness, which dissipated the force of Sunny's attacks and made him feel as though he was drowning in

was drowning in her

she

Sunny did not understand the same principles Neph had spoken about. The relationship between mass, acceleration, and force... he

become second nature to him. By manipulating how much his body, or various parts of